


A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest

by youlostyourmindinthesound



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi is a witch, Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Magic, Bokuto is a human, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fem!Haikyuu, Fluff, Genderbending, Magic, Potions, Rule 63, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Witch - Freeform, Witches, alchemist, all that jazz, spells
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-10-29 13:17:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10854777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlostyourmindinthesound/pseuds/youlostyourmindinthesound
Summary: “We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.We are not afraid of the darkness.We trust that the moon shall guide us.We are determining the future at this very moment.We know that the heart is the philosopher's stone.Our music is our alchemy.”― Saul WilliamsAkaashi and Kenma run an Apothecary and Bokuto is way too into owls.





	1. Of cigarette lighters and smudge sticks

**Author's Note:**

> I wanna thank @Ask_The_Psychis for giving me the courage to start writing this. i've wanted to do a long fem!haikyuu fic for forever, and now i finally am. The first chapter is short, and just to introduce the story and characters.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON WITCHCRAFT OR ALCHEMY, MOST OF MY MATERIAL HAS BEEN RESEARCHED AND SOME I JUST PLAIN MADE UP. DO NOT TAKE THIS PIECE OF WRITING AS AN ACCURATE DIPICTION OF ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED THINGS. THANK YOU.

Akaashi wakes up to the smell of burning hair. She pushes herself into a sitting position in the too-short cot laid out in the living room of the small flat she shares with two roommates. She looks out the large window next to her ‘bed’, notes the greeny-grey colour of the clouds hanging heavy and low in the air and sighs.

The entire room is filled with plants, dangling in glass globes from the ceiling and clustered in small potted groups, tied up and hanging out to dry from the curtain rails, and Akaashi weaves her way through the maze of greens and browns and reds and purples, pads barefoot down the hall and into the kitchen.

One of her roommates, Kenma, is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter next to a small cauldron bubbling thickly over the gas stovetop, using a cigarette lighter to singe the edges of her bleached locks short; her familiar, a black cat named Cecil, curled in her lap. They’d all been taught since childhood never to cut their hair, never put a blade to any part of yourself, because a witch holds magic in her every cell and destroying that would be ungrateful, but Kenma, being the wily genius she is, had found a loophole when they were twelve in school together and their hair started to drag on the dirty ground. 

She does Akaashi’s hair as well, but Akaashi dislikes the smell and the way it makes the ends curl and her dark hair currently hangs to her waist. Kenma can’t stand it growing past her shoulders.

“There’s a storm coming,” she murmurs without looking up at Akaashi, focused on her task, “perfect weather for brewing a fertility potion. We’re running out.”

She’s talking about the apothecary beneath their apartment that they co-own. Witches are an endangered species in the modern world and alchemists are few and far apart. Most people think that they’re a hoax or a novelty store. Alternative medicines, holistic hippies, but the things they sell are magic, and they _work_.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that in the house,” Akaashi sighs, referring to the hair, but is ignored.

Other witches often come to buy ingredients and they have a few loyal human customers, who always assume but never ask.  
The days of being burned at the stake are over, but the world is still a dangerous place for witches and the risks of being found out are far worse than any rumours and jokes people may make.

Akaashi pushes her hair behind her ears and goes to peer into the pot, notes the gurgling lavender colour and picks up the wooden spoon sitting in the mixture. Kenma’s small hands quickly slap hers away.

“You need to add red clover soon,” she says, undeterred.

“I’m not stupid,” Kenma huffs, finally putting the lighter down, “I’m waiting for the colour change.”

“Hmmm...”

She moves across the room to collect a few small glass bottles to put the potion into, notes she needs to get more soon, and lines them up on the counter, placing a steel funnel into the first one.

Kenma is stirring finely chopped leaves into the now sky blue brew.

“I’m going to open up,” she says, not expecting a reply and not getting one, walking back into the living room and pulling the wooden chest filled with her clothes out from under her cot. She puts on a long black dress that covers her arms to hide the runes tattooed onto her skin, pulls the amethyst pendant she always wears (to absorb negative energy) out from under the wide scooped neckline and grabs her shoes before walking out the front door and down the stairs. She unlocks the store and flips the calligraphy sign in the glass window to ‘OPEN’.

Her own familiar, a snow-white owl named Rain, dozes lazily on her perch in the corner of the store.

Akaashi moves around the shop, turning bottles so that the labels face outwards, arranging the baskets full of fresh herbs and manages to sweep the entire room before the first customer comes in.

The bell above the door chimes just as she is putting the last box of crystals on the shelf behind the till.  
It’s Nishinoya, a small white witch from two blocks down that visits the store on a regular basis.  
“Good morning Akaashi-chan! Good morning Rain-chan!” she greets cheerfully, her long ponytail swinging behind her as she heads to one of the side shelves. She knows the store as well as Akaashi does. 

“Good morning Noya-san,” Akaashi says, trying not to roll her eyes at the honorific the tiny girl gives her, “What are you looking for today?”

“I need a smudge stick,” she replies, currently comparing two different kinds.  
“As you know, I’ve just moved in with Asahi, and I am 99% sure her apartment is haunted.” she continues referring to her long-term girlfriend. Asahi is a human, and their relationship is considered taboo in the witching community. Not that Noya cares.

“Haunted?”

“Yeah, you know, rattling windows, flickering lights, doors opening and closing by themselves, the whole shebang. I always used to feel a weird energy when I visited there before, but I thought it was her anxiety coming through. She’s in total denial about it too. It’s always ‘the wind’,” Noya rolls her eyes, “What do you think?” She holds up a few samples. 

“Well,” Akaashi muses, coming out from behind the till and joining her by the basket of bundled up herbs, “I would use cedar to get rid of unwanted spirits. Maybe sage to if you want to cleanse the entire place.”  
“You’re just trying to get me to buy more stuff,” Noya laughs, and Akaashi lets her lips quirk up in a small smirk, “I’m gonna go with the cedar Akaashi-chan.”

***

Akaashi is just done ringing up Noya’s smudge stick, and a few other small items she’d added to her purchase, when the door slams open and the little antique bell clangs violently against the wall.

“Oh. My. GOD!” Someone is screaming and Akaashi startles hard, her whole body jerking. Noya almost drops the brown paper bags filled with her things.

There are two girls standing in the doorway, one with dark messy bed head clinging to the doorframe, desperately trying to hold her friend back as the other desperately tries to claw her way into the shop.

“It’s a Snowy!” she nearly sobs, her hair grey and white and ridiculous, and Akaashi doesn’t know what she’s talking about until she follows her gaze to where Rain is perched, feathers ruffled and hackles up.

The wild girl manages to get away from her friend, who is murmuring, “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” and rushes towards the owl.

Rain, of course, has only one purpose in life: to serve, protect and accompany Akaashi. 

So when the girl gets close, Rain spreads her wings, lets out an ear piercing shriek, and attacks.


	2. Kenma is wild fam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The third roommate is revealed, some magic happens and we learn some of the story's lore!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short again. And super late. I'm sorry.
> 
> I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner -_-
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

“STOP!”

Everything is suddenly bathed in a hazy blue luminescence, objects surrounded by it like cytoplasm. Jars and bottles rise from their shelves, bits of soil are floating from their air-borne pots. Rain is frozen, hovering in mid-flight. The two strange girls are stuck in place, looks of horror on their motionless faces, feet just off the ground.

Akaashi stands with her arms outstretched, palms facing towards the chaos in front of her, body shaking with the strain of her magic.  
The trap door leading back up to the apartment suddenly slams open and Kenma is sticking her head through, shrieking about the noise.

“You damn fuckers fucked up my _fucking_ recipe! It boiled the fuck over! I’m going to kill someone, I AM!”

The distraction is enough to pull Akaashi out of her concentration and everything crashes to the floor, people and potions alike. Rain flails on the ground for a moment.

Kenma stomps down the stairs with little socked feet as Akaashi pants, swaying on her feet for a moment. She’s still only in apple printed panties and an undershirt. She grabs the bird that is almost the same size as she is and shoves her into the cage hanging from her perch.

“Akaashi,” she says, voice eerily calm as she closes the latch, “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Oh Kenma-chan, it’s not her fault,” Noya says gently, picking herself up off the floor. The beginning of a bruise is forming around her elbow and Akaashi feels immediately guilty.

Kenma ignores her and turns to the two girls sitting shell shocked on the hardwood floor.

“Whose are these?”  
“Not mine!” calls Noya.

“They’re not…like us,” Akaashi mumbles.  
Kenma looks at her with a disappointed frown before turning a golden eyed glare on the humans.

“You mean we’re not fucking magic!” The crazy owl girl blurts.

“Great, now we have to kill them.”

“No!” Noya whines, “I hate when you do this Kenma!”

“We could just use an amnesia serum…” Akaashi sighs thinking about all the work that will go into making that.

“But then we’ll have to keep them tied up somewhere for a few days while we collect the ingredients.”

“Let me call Asahi!”

“Don’t fucking call Asahi!”

“Um, hello idiots?” 

The three witches turn to see Akaashi's other roommate hanging from the hole in the ceiling like a big, sleepy, ginger bat.

“What’s all the shouting about?”

“Hinata, get down here, Akaashi fucked up with some humans.”

“For once you’re not the one in trouble Chibi-chan,” Noya giggles.

“What happened?” Hinata chirps excitedly, suddenly wide awake. She drops to the floor, landing on all fours before straightening up and smoothing down her old-fashioned nightgown.

“Oh, it was so cool!” Noya rushes over and grabs the other girl’s hands in her own, “Rain was all ‘CAAW’ and Akaashi was all ‘AHHH’ and did her whole glowy telekinesis thing and I was all ‘BAH!’…”

“What are we going to do?’ Kenma mutters to Akaashi, ignoring the other two witches oohing and ahhing in the background.

“I _said_ amnesia serum.”

“That will take too long!”

“Well what do you suggest?”

“We kill them!”

“Kenma!” 

 

“Shou-chan?”

 

Everyone turns to look at the strange owly girl, wondering why she's trying to talk and why she know's Hinata's name.

The small witch looks like a confused bird, turning her neck and tilting her head, short tufts of orange hair sticking up like soft feathers.

“Bokuto…Kuroo?”

“You know them?” Noya shrieks excitedly and Akaashi rolls her eyes. Of course, because how could this day get any better.

“Well you can’t kill them now…” Noya notes helpfully.

“KILL THEM?”

“Calm down you annoying rat!” 

“Kenma, so mean!”

“Um…do we have any say in if we get killed?” the black-haired girl, Kuroo now, raises her hand timidly.

Everyone stills for a moment and Kenma turns away from the girls on the floor and crosses her arms.

“Be quiet human.”

Another second of silence and then…

“Kenma! That was so lame I can’t even believe you just said that!” Hinata squeals and she and Noya shriek with laughter. Akaashi uses her hand to cover her smile.

“Hinata I will turn your friends into newts.”

That quiets them down but Akaashi hears Hinata mutter “unoriginal” under her breath. 

“Shou-chan I can’t believe you live with MAGIC people!” the girl now known as Bokuto cries.

“I’m magic too!”

“HINATA I ACTUALLY CAN’T DEAL WITH HOW STUPID YOU ARE!” Kenma yells at the same time Bokuto jumps up in excitement.

Akaashi jumps, flicks her wrist on instinct and sends her back to the ground with an ‘oof’.

Her vision blurs for a moment and she can feel herself lurching backwards, but then Kenma is there, quick as a whip, to catch her.

“Akaashi!” Hinata whimpers.

Noya pulls the stool out from behind the register for Akaashi to sit on.  
Instead she slides to the floor and pulls her knees to her chest, letting her head loll back against the counter.

“Don’t do that again, you’re straining yourself” Kenma tuts but Akaashi can see the worry in her eyes. 

Rain hoots soft concern from her cage.

Telekinesis on such an elevated level is something only extremely experienced witches could master. Akaashi’s mother had been one of those witches, and Akaashi was one of very few kindling born with this ability. But utilising it in its natural form was dangerous, and could even be deadly to young witches.

“You frightened her, idiot Bokuto!” Hinata is standing above her with her hands on her hips. Not quite a threatening stance on such a small body, but Bokuto still looks shamefaced.

“I’m sorry…A-Akaashi-san,” she murmurs, bowing her head.

Akaashi doesn’t have the energy to answer and instead lets her eyes slide shut.

“We should take her upstairs,” she hears someone say, but she isn’t quite sure who.

More murmuring reaches her ears and she tries to prise apart her lips and tell them that she’s fine, she just needs a few minutes to breathe is all, but her mouth won’t co-operate and mind goes fuzzy for a moment and she blips quietly out of reality.


End file.
